Ownership.of.Technological.Innovation

Successful implementation of a strategy depends on employee commitment (Noble & Mokwa,
1999). Specific commitment to a strategy or an innovation is almost synonymous with the
concept of ownership (Argyris & Kaplan, 1994), or with the concept of user involvement
as used in information-systems literature (Barki & Hartwick, 1994). User involvement is
seen as the individual user�s understanding of the importance, for instance, of an information-
system project, and may in turn be established through user participation (Barki &
Hartwick, 1994; Ives & Olson, 1984).
Whenever achieved, the inherent feeling of ownership may not merely help in overcoming
resistance to change; rather, �owners� may play innovating roles themselves. Some may
even become "champions" of technological innovation, by acting as informal transformational
leaders contributing to the innovation by actively and enthusiastically promoting its
progress (Howell & Higgins, 1990). In information-systems projects users now often take
the lead because widespread decentralization has made information technology a powerful
business tool in the hands of end-users, including those who are responsible for satisfying
customers (Martinson & Chong, 1999).
Though intuitively compelling, the impact on performance of ownership, specific commitment,
and user involvement has not been well documented. The reported positive results
are often insignificant, and the literature on commitment still makes little comment on the
motivational impact of specific commitment (Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Gilbert, 1996).
Even the reported positive impact of user involvement on information-system projects may
be questioned because of methodological problems (Ives & Olson, 1984).
In this chapter, "ownership" means employee commitment to the Internet project; ownership
is not limited to isolated individuals but may include all the employees working in a firm or
on a certain project. It is assumed that a strong feeling of ownership of an Internet project
will generally stand in opposition to any personal loyalty to existing marketing channels.
The effect of ownership on the adoption of Internet-based interaction with customers may
be mediated by the willingness to cannibalize. There may, however, also be a direct effect
because innovation is not always expected to cannibalize existing investments or because
the cannibalization effect is unimportant.


H4: The stronger the ownership feeling toward the Internet projects in a company, the
greater the company�s willingness to cannibalize.
H5: The stronger the ownership feeling toward the Internet projects in a company, the
more likely the company is to adopt Internet-based interaction with its customers